I usually whip on down to the Woolies petrol station at Belconnen first thing to grab a Canberra Times. Laurie’s usually on deck there. He’s been working the graveyard shift there for a while. He seems like a nice bloke. He’s always the same. He’ll say ‘g’day’ and have a brief chat, but he knows that most people who are coming into the servo at 3:30 in the morning, probably aren’t up for a long involved chat. He is refreshingly ‘old school’.

If we go back a few months, that could have been me instead of “Laurie”. I was nearly employed there earlier this year, but baulked at their deceptive recruitment practices when I was told during induction that I was being employed in a role which was not the one I had been interviewed for, not the one I had applied for. I would have taken the job if it hadn’t been for this…in hindsight perhaps I should have, but with recruitment being a virtual con-job, I couldn’t bear to stick around and see what other footwear would eventually fall.

I suppose it would have been an interesting sight…me ranting back at the radio during Jim Ball’s show, oblivious to the fact that a fuel pump needs to be authorised! I wonder how different Mark’s story would be if that had been the case.